from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Raising kids is an adventure filled with all sorts of imperfect decisions. A butterfly flapping its wings on your kid's iPad could initiate a cascade of events, leading to his/her eventual life of crime or triumph. Or maybe that butterfly has no effect whatsoever -- how did that unusual insect get into the house, anyway? Common core standards might be crushing young spirits with "new math" -- or just frustrating parents who don't remember how to do long division. Is there an optimal way to parent that leads to a society where every child is above average and no one graduates in the bottom half of the class? Maybe the best path is just to let kids figure it all out themselves. (But probably not.)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Pessimistic economists have predicted overpopulation problems based on exponential growth trends, but statistics point to lower birth rates as countries become more industrialized. So now, there's a different kind of problem -- aging populations and minimal population growth in certain countries. How will we deal with people living longer and having fewer and fewer kids?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are as many different kinds of parenting as there are parents (or more...) -- every kid is different, and no two parents treat their kids the same way. Definitely, some questionable parenting techniques exist, but who's really to say what's correct? (Okay, child services and/or a judge....) Some folks believe in a free-range kid policy, but others think that's crazy or dangerous. If you're not already flooded with parenting advice, check out some of the following links.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

A couple decades ago, the choices for elementary schools were pretty simple and limited -- public or private school. It's a bit more complicated now with public schools, charter schools, magnet schools and various different kinds of private schools that may be religious or based on a particular philosophy or pedagogical technique. (There's also the choice of opting-out with homeschooling....) In the end, there's no certainty in any complex decision -- some schools might have higher test scores, but quantitative statistics aren't everything. Here are just a few links for parents looking at a choice between elementary schools.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We've mentioned before how Santa is not quite believable, even though there are various explanations trying to defend his existence. If you have young children, you might be debating when to reveal the truth behind Santa. Maybe it doesn't really matter. Here are just a few links related to parenting kids, and maybe your kids will find out about Santa on their own someday.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If there were some simple things you could do that would make you smarter, you'd do them, right? Unfortunately, it's difficult to guarantee that a particular activity will actually cause you to be smarter. If you'll settle for a nice correlation, though, there are plenty of things to try! Here are just a few.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Parents have a lot of decisions to make that they may be encountering for the first time -- choosing between formula or breastmilk, letting a kid have more than 2 hours of screen time per day, determining when a kid is mature enough to be left alone, and the list goes on. Decades ago, some of these decisions didn't even exist, but recently, it seems debatable parental choices can be criminal offenses under exactly the wrong circumstances. Here are just some examples of the increasing societal judgment of bad parenting.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If you have young kids, you might have noticed that public playgrounds are a bit different than the ones you played on as a kid. Rubberized surfaces have replaced gravel or asphalt, and simple teeter-totters (or see-saws) have been re-designed using viscoelastic materials to prevent dangerous accelerations. You might have noticed it's hard to find monkey bars on playgrounds. The reasons for these changes are obvious: safety and liability. However, are kids still having as much fun outdoors? Here are just a few links on playground equipment.

from the everwhere-is-the-campus? dept

A couple of years ago, Tim Cushing wrote up the story of a Minnesota student who was forced to give her social media passwords to a school so they could snoop through her off-campus life and develop a couple of life-lessons for her. Those life lessons appeared to have essentially amounted to recognizing that school administrators too often see themselves as parents and they think students' free speech rights end where an administrator's interest in his/her students' lives begin. Fortunately, a judge disabused them of their misconceptions, stating in no uncertain terms that forcing a student to give up their social media passwords is a violation of the First Amendment. Common sense, how little we see of ye.

Minnewaska Area Schools agreed to pay $70,000 in damages and rewrite its policies to limit how intrusive the school can be when searching a student’s e-mails and social media accounts created off school grounds. The federal court settlement comes just after Rogers High School senior Reid Sagehorn, a 17-year-old honor student and football captain, was suspended for seven weeks for a two-word Internet posting in a case that created a community uproar.

“A lot of schools, like the folks at Minnewaska, think that just because it’s easier to know what kids are saying off campus through social media somehow means the rules have changed, and you can punish them for what they say off campus,” said attorney Wallace Hilke, who helped lead Riley’s case from the Minnesota branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

While it would be quite easy to see the restitution as an "all good" ending to this story, the article unfortunately then goes on to quote Minnewaska school district administrators who still can't seem to wrap their heads around the idea that it isn't their job to police students' off-campus behavior. Chief amongst them is Greg Schmidt, Superintendent, who wasn't in that position when the snooping occurred but did work on the settlement.

“Some people think schools go too far and I get that,” Schmidt said. “But we want to make kids aware that their actions outside school can be detrimental.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Schmidt, the general public doesn't much care that he wants to teach kids all kinds of lessons about their personal lives. That isn't a public school's role, never has been, and never should be. Parents parent and schools...er, school? Regardless, getting involved in students' private lives is a gross misstep. The student's mother agrees.

“They never once told me they were going to bring her into the room and demand her Facebook password,” Sandra said. “I’m hoping schools kind of leave these things alone so parents can punish their own kids for things that happen off school grounds.”.

Hope? Hope!?! How about demand? While the new rules crafted by the district limit school's from looking into social media exchanges unless there's a "reasonable suspicion" they will find actions or speech that violates school rules, how quickly do you think we'll hear a story about that leeway being abused? It's high time for parents to insist that they be allowed to parent their own children and for schools to focus on teaching academics, rather than life lessons.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Who can really say what effect parenting has on the development of a child? Presumably, the parents of Ted and David Kaczynski didn't raise their sons in dramatically different ways, but these brothers ultimately live very different lives. It's sometimes difficult to define what a good parent is, and it may seem like it's easier to point out bad parents, but the distinctions may not be as clear-cut as everyone thinks. (Who is qualified to judge, anyway?) Here are just a few links on the topic of raising kids.